ASMR & TtC & me

I just recently discovered the phenomenon known as ASMR; Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It's essentially the idea that certain sensory inputs can invoke a deep involuntary response. Certain sounds, like maybe the handling of bubble wrap, can fascinate a person, and usually, ideally be very relaxing, like meditation, or inspiring, or both. I learned from a short audiobook (sorry @Historical Science) by an organization called Whisperlodge. At the end of that little adventure in office sounds, like paper folding, staples being loaded, a briefcase being unzipped, and so on, the listener was given the assignment of discovering what perceptions seem to command special attention to that person.

I found it difficult at first. Negative things came to mind, like fingernails on a blackboard or walking barefoot across a dirty concrete floor. But something that commanded my positive attention?

One that I found no longer matters much to me, but as a child I was fascinated by the smooth white expanse of a fresh snowfall, I felt compelled to don my boots and go outside and leave my lines of footprints all through it. Not just our yard but our neighbors' as well; nowadays I feel sorry for anyone who wanted to sit at their window with a cup of coffee and marvel at the purity of the snow, only to see this kid tramping through their yard.

Something related that has always fascinated me, and still does, is the melting of ice at the end of winter, or during a warm spell. It's that sight and sensation of water being freed from the bonds of cold, watching drips work their way down stone walls and sparkling in the sun, the fresh pureness of water that's broken free and the sharp sparkle of ice with its shiny watery coat, the curbside rivulets with their little islands. I more than once got very wet, and once nearly drowned, because of my fascination with the sound pond ice made as it cracked under my weight.

I still have that fascination, though I stay off ponds and lakes now. But I do get absorbed in using the ice-chipper at the end and edges of our driveway when that hard-packed ice is soft enough break.

Interesting, to me anyway, was when I was reading the Tao te Ching, and came to the chapter purporting to describe the "ancients" who lived by it (Chapter 15). Among other attributes they were "watchful as though crossing a winter stream" and "Yielding like ice about to melt." I immediately comprehended those images, the words didn't seem like a discovery to me but rather a re-discovery of something I'd always known.

Don't really know exactly what to do with that little bit of synchronicity, but there you have it. Or at least I do. A sensation/image/experience that I feel as ASMR.